I figured that we couldn't call ourselves foodies until we had visited the growers markets, a place for niche and specialist food producers to gather and allow people like us to sample their produce, tempting us to purchase there oh-so-delicious goods.

Did they succeed? Holy shit yes.

There was some ridiculously delicious things around. The cute girl at the Pukara stand drew me toward the stand, but the beautifully viscous balsamic had me hooked. Some café that produces delicious things in the blue mountains had an outrageously delicious chutney that I am convinced would taste good on anything (even muesli :o ) Honest to god, I could probably live off that stuff.

A delicious sausage, with freakin' bacon included with the onion was consumed for breakfast, while the coffee of the morning was purchased from a stall that offered coffee beans grown in Australia. Terrible, terrible coffee. You'd think that a specialist coffee stall would have a barista with half an idea of what he was doing (I'd settle for a quarter!). Some beautiful cheeses were tried, a biscuit from whisk and pin did not fail to disappoint. The honey stall was a highlight of a long series of excitedly sampled things, with pooh having not one, but two blends at the table that day. La Tartine, a sourdough bakery, managed to produce bread so awe inspiring that it surpassed even Sonoma in my esteem. Not to mention, the description of the fruit loaf caused a friend to burst into tears at the sheer weight of awesome implied.

I'm determined to go next month and get some of that honey. and more bread. and some cheese. Just thinking about it makes me salivate.

I expect everybody to come to the markets next week.